Throwing Frogs
by heatherpoulette
Summary: Jake thinking about what led up to his current status as the boyfriend of Clare Edwards


**Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi or any of it's characters. If I did I would have moved heaven and earth and found some way to have Alex Steele return as Angie Jeremiah.**

**Just a little one-shot about Jake. We still really don't know much about him in his pre-Degrassi life, although I'd be shocked if there was truly anything earth shattering to find out.**

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

He was always a free spirit before, a player if you will. He never meant to hurt any girl he was involved with, but rather always made it clear from the very beginning that he was not interested in having any kind of serious relationship but rather just fun. As long as the mutual understanding was there, fun was what he had until one of them moved on, and if the girl was not able to accept that she could not change him and tried to turn their fun into a relationship, he moved on even faster. It had always worked for him in the past. He knew from his parents that relationships were not meant to last, that in the end they just caused pain and suffering, and had therefore decided at a very young age that he would never put himself in the position to be hurt the way his dad had been. And it had always worked for him. Until now.

When he saw her again that night at dinner, he didn't think much of it. Sure she was cute, but so was her friend Alli who stared at him in the way that he knew so well, the way that told him it really wouldn't take much to get her in any way he wanted. He had known her quite a few years before, when they were both much younger, way before he realized that girls could be fun in ways other than watching them squeal as you threw frogs at them. When he kissed her that first night, it really was to show her that she did not need to be sad about her ex not acknowledging how important their relationship and subsequent break-up had been, it was nothing more. True it was a good kiss but then again he was a good kisser, as he had been told that many times before, so he had no reason to think it would not be anything but good.

Starting all over at Degrassi in the middle of his junior year was not something he truly minded except for the fact that he was now in a city environment after living with his dad in the outer suburbs for so many years, really more country than typical suburbs, with frequent weekends to the cabin where he was happiest being. Aside from now being surrounded by more concrete, he was happy because there was a whole new pool of girls to swim in. He had pretty much gone through all the girls at his old school, and was excited to move on without baggage. The same rules applied as in his old school to these new ones: relationships were not an option, fun was the goal, and most importantly, no chick flicks ever.

So how did he get to where he was? How was he the boyfriend of his stepsister, the one who took her virginity, the one who has to see her every non-school moment of the day analyzing his ever move to make sure he was in fact not cheating on her? He really did not know. He knew it started off innocently enough - he liked Clare (she was not his stepsister then, in fact, he had no clue that his dad was even interested in Clare's mom at first) but he liked other girls as well, yet when he saw Clare rebuff his advances out of fear of it getting more serious, he was somehow hooked, as if everything he had ever said about not wanting to be serious with a girl never existed. Suddenly she made him want to have her as a girlfriend, to be with her whenever he could, to protect her from her crazy ex who was making her the villain in the play he wrote for the entire school to see. Even when he knew their parents were dating way before Clare did, he did not care as it somehow made it more exciting. Making out everywhere they could, sometimes a little more, was more dangerous knowing both their parents could catch them any minute. But once his father announced his engagement to Clare's mother and made it clear about his feelings regarding Jake dating Clare, he should have stopped it there.

He did in fact stop it there. For the entire summer leading up to the wedding he spent time alone at the cabin, sometimes with old friends from life before Degrassi, guys and girls, hooked up plenty with the girls without a second thought, but as soon as he was back in Toronto and saw Clare coming down the stair at their parents' wedding, he knew he was in trouble. The whole fiasco at the cabin, kissing her best friend, why Clare forgave him he would never know. He wished she hadn't, that they could have somehow morphed from uncomfortableness over what had happened into the role of siblings and perhaps one day friends again - but yet she forgave him fully then gave herself to him in a night of passion and longing and her speaking of forever when deep in his heart he knew would never come to be. Yet he went along with it because maybe he wanted to believe it at that moment. Maybe his parents' failed marriage was not the example he should follow but his father's new one. Regardless, he could not take back what had happened and now knew they would forever be linked not only by the name "step-siblings" but by the fact her was her first.

He rolled off the bed and started pulling on his clothes. He gave a smile and a half-shrug to Jenna who was still naked under the covers, accepted her satisfied smile as she had had fun too, grabbed the keys to his truck and quietly left the Bhandari's house. As he drove back to the Edward's house, his new home, he hoped that Clare was not still up. If she was, he was not sure how he'd handle the situation, but it was inevitable. He was who he was, he knew that. But he also knew it was a whole lot easier when he could just throw frogs.

**The End**


End file.
